GeoTomo TomoPlus 7.5: From Near-Surface Picks to Defensible Statics

A land seismic processing team can spend considerable effort refining a subsurface image while the near-surface correction still carries an unresolved geometry, picking, or datum problem. TomoPlus addresses that earlier stage: building a near-surface velocity model and deriving the statics that a subsequent processing workflow will consume.

This research-based technical assessment uses official sources checked on 8 November 2026; TomoPlus has not been independently installed or tested.

The current release is clear; the supported configuration is less explicit

GeoTomo’s current TomoPlus page identifies version 7.5 and links to release notes dated 31 July 2026. That is the latest public release verified here, replacing the older 7.1 reference in this profile. The current supplier is GeoTomo, LLC; its corporate overview describes the company’s founding in 1998. The sources reviewed did not establish a different current owner, acquisition, or product renaming, so none is asserted.

TomoPlus is presented as a 2D and 3D near-surface imaging and statics package for Linux workstations or clusters. GeoTomo separates delay-time and GLI3D refraction solutions from advanced nonlinear first-arrival traveltime tomography, full-waveform tomography, waveform-envelope inversion, and several joint approaches on the product page. These are method choices within the product portfolio. The page is not a contractual module-entitlement matrix, and it does not demonstrate that any one method will recover a particular site’s true velocity field.

Follow the evidence from traces to the delivered static

A representative workflow begins with seismic traces and trustworthy shot/receiver geometry, then first-arrival picking and QC, an initial velocity model, inversion, and statics calculation. GeoTomo’s training overview explicitly follows project building, picking, traveltime tomography, and statics. Uphole information can provide additional model control, but it must be reconciled with the survey’s coordinate and elevation conventions.

The published 3-D travel-time ASCII format makes the input contract tangible: shot and receiver IDs, coordinates, channel counts, travel times, and a distance-unit flag. It is an undated format reference, not a complete 7.5 interface specification. Its practical lesson is that a pick is attached to a geometry and unit system; importing the right time against the wrong receiver or elevation convention can invalidate the intended interpretation.

GeoTomo’s dated TomoPlus FAQ discusses uphole interpolation, initial models, shot depth versus surface elevation, and the intermediate, floating, and final datums. Its 2018 explanation of long-wavelength statics to a floating datum moves shots and receivers to an intermediate datum using model velocity, then to the floating datum using replacement velocity. Use that explanation to frame a technical discussion, and request the matching 7.5 manual before adopting the exact calculation convention.

For a processing handover, specify the required velocity model, geometry, statics tables, units, datum, sign convention, and any coordinate restoration. The same legacy FAQ describes model output to SEG-Y and ASCII statics, while 7.5 release notes independently confirm active SEG-Y and model-output functionality. A receiving processor should be able to identify what was corrected and what remains to be applied. Applying a correction twice is a workflow risk to check, rather than a documented TomoPlus defect.

Choose a method that matches the information available

The documented method range supports starting with conventional refraction approaches and moving to nonlinear traveltime, waveform, or joint methods when the project warrants them. GeoTomo’s brochure, copyright 2013, describes layer-based delay-time and GLI assumptions and shows picking QC, model-building, and inversion displays. Its illustrations and promotional comparisons are historical vendor material, not independent accuracy or performance evidence for 7.5.

The engineering decision is which observations and assumptions can support the requested correction. First-arrival interpretation should be assessed against pick quality and geometric coverage; a waveform evaluation also needs an agreed source representation, usable frequency content, and initial-model strategy. A joint seismic–gravity or seismic–EM method needs compatible observations and a defensible relationship between their model parameters. The existence of a joint solver does not by itself establish that the additional dataset constrains the ambiguity relevant to this survey.

Ask for the selected method’s current mathematical and implementation documentation, its QC outputs, and a demonstration on representative data. Inspect residuals by shot or location and sensitivity to plausible starting models instead of treating one global misfit value as geological validation. These are evaluation criteria, not claims that this assessment has reproduced a TomoPlus result.

What 7.5 changes at the exchange and QC boundary

Several 7.5 release-note entries deserve a targeted regression check. In 2DVIEWM/3DVIEWM, the scalars at bytes 69 and 71 in model SEG-Y output changed from 10 to 100. Verify how the receiving system interprets those headers before comparing or replacing an older export. PREP now allows individual gathers larger than 2 GB to be opened; that specific change is not a promise that every file operation is unlimited.

The notes also document revised parameter-file creation, a new INTEGRATION module, data-based and model-based refraction-residual options in 3DSTATS, an HDF5 viewer, and a utility for converting specified SEG-Y data formats to IEEE floating point. They do not supply a general programmable API contract or a performance benchmark. Do not infer support for arbitrary HDF5 schemas merely from the addition of a viewer.

A vendor plug-in announcement describes exchange with Landmark SeisSpace/DecisionSpace, and the current product page still links it. The announcement is undated and does not certify a contemporary version pair. Confirm the exact TomoPlus and SeisSpace releases, supported transferred objects, module license, and failure/restart behaviour before depending on that route.

Budget for a verified Linux and license environment

Although the product page specifies Linux workstations or clusters, the public requirements table still lists CentOS 5, RHEL 5+, Debian 5+, and Ubuntu 10/12-era environments. Its memory, graphics, and GPU notes must not be treated as a current 7.5 compatibility matrix. In particular, the listed historic OpenCL GPU models and additional-GPU-license note do not establish support for a modern accelerator or the entitlement delivered in a new order.

GeoTomo’s system licensing FAQ documents host information, network-enabled licenses, and FlexNet server procedures, with entries published in 2017 and a server entry revised in 2020. This establishes a historical licensing mechanism, not current perpetual/subscription terms, seat counts, cluster job limits, or cloud rights. Obtain written confirmation of supported Linux distributions and libraries, CPU/MPI/runtime requirements, GPU support, dataset-dependent RAM and scratch storage, node access, and the license-server version. Also confirm offline, VM, cloud, failover, maintenance, and support conditions. Public support pages remain available, but they do not define a response-time commitment.

Compare the actual correction task

For a bounded 2D refraction interpretation task, Geometrics’ SeisImager/2D is a relevant alternative: its current product description documents first-break picking, time-term, delay-time, and tomographic analysis on a PC or compatible seismograph. Compare model dimensionality, the required analysis method, trace/shot allowances of the selected edition, QC, and deliverable formats. This comparison does not establish SeisImager as a replacement for TomoPlus’s complete 3D or joint-waveform scope, or establish a current SeisImager build.

Survey-design tools answer a different question. Our VECON assessment concerns acquisition geometry and target illumination; the NORSAR Software Suite assessment discusses modelling, illumination, and monitoring design. Those are complementary contexts for planning an informative survey, rather than substitutes for a near-surface statics solution or evidence of automatic connectors.

TomoPlus merits evaluation when near-surface modelling and statics are a controlling part of a land or shallow-marine processing project and the team needs a choice of conventional and advanced methods. A smaller 2D refraction task may be adequately served by a narrower workflow, depending on its documented analysis and export needs. Confidence here is strongest in 7.5 availability and the explicit release changes; current deployment compatibility and commercial entitlements remain important procurement questions. A useful acceptance exercise would preserve the inputs, picks, model assumptions, correction conventions, and receiving-system checks for one representative project, so the delivered statics can be explained as well as applied.